


West of Perdition

by isoladea



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: M/M, Post-Garden of Light, Post-New York Sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22806316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isoladea/pseuds/isoladea
Summary: There is ghost in the New York Public Library.
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji
Comments: 41
Kudos: 124
Collections: Work's I've Finished





	1. West of Perdition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Jei.

This is what happens when a man dies: his body is carried away even as his soul lingers on as shards on the floor, clumps in winter-browned grass, exhalations on the sheets, or stains on the pavement. The soul tends to exit life in pieces, perhaps to no one’s surprise; death, after all, is a rather traumatic event. 

It takes time for the soul to put itself back together, and it happens piece by piece. When he comes to, it is mid-sentence, at the end of a book: “Just go to bed, now. Quickly. Quickly and slowly.” It is akin to waking up gradually, gently, out of a long spring sleep, except there is no bed in sight and he is sitting on a long wooden desk with a novel before him. He vaguely remembers reading it through but cannot recall the words, the way he knows, without quite remembering, that he has been walking between the bookshelves for hours or days or even months now, running his hands across both well-worn and pristine spines. Time slips away from him like dust motes dancing in the sunbeams, slow enough for him to see, too fast for him to catch. 

It is spring in New York City, and there is no trace of blood left on the pavement outside of the public library. 

* * *

The ghost in the library does not know his name, where he is, or where he comes from, but he knows his books. He remembers nothing but the books. The stacks welcome him regardless of the time of the day. He feels like a child playing pirate; the reading room is his seven seas, and the volumes are treasure chests to be plundered at his leisure. He breezes through Faulkner and Kerouac by the sunlight and adventures by way of Tolkien under the moonlight. 

There is an omnivorous hunger within him that the room is too happy to feed. He sits cross-legged on top of the shelves, gorging himself on Feynman’s lectures under the golden light of the sun. He hunts through the stacks, piling books on tables, categorising them based on his personal interests. There is no one else aside from him; there is nothing else aside from the books and the solitude and some light to read by. While conjugating French verbs, his eyes stray to the city beyond the window, but the city proves to be a jagged grey mountain range on the horizon, as distant as a dream. Beneath the window are waves, white-maned and racing towards the skyline. 

He tucks a paperback into his back pocket, leaps off the shelf, and, not remembering how he got in, looks for an exit. 

The stonework of the building opens into a large set of stairs, guarded by two lions on pedestals. They turn their heads towards him with a unison that roots him where he stands. However, almost as quickly, they lose their interest on him: the one on the right is cleaning its paws, while the one on the left stretches its back under the warmth of the sun. 

The sea laps at the bottom steps, and he makes his way down cautiously, keeping an eye on the guardians, who are steadfastly ignoring him. He takes off his red sneakers and his socks, rolls up his jeans as far as they would go. The water is sun-warmed. He tries to peer into its depth, but it is more unforgiving than the night. He gazes at the city on the horizon instead. If he squints, he thinks he can make out the seagulls. 

He reaches for his paperback, a Steinbeck. As his fingertips trace the letters of the title, the absurdity of it all dawns upon him. “Where am I?” he says to himself, to the book, to the guardians towering above him, to New York City on the impossible horizon. 

“Not quite hell, and yet not quite heaven,” says the guardian on the right. 

“West of perdition, east of Eden,” sighs the guardian on the left. 

He looks up at the two lions, but they are silent and made of stone. 

* * *

Things have begun to change in the land west of perdition and east of Eden. For one, the ghost finds that he is being haunted. 

The sun, beaming through the grand windowed archways, reveals disembodied shadows crossing the marble floor, sitting on the long tables. From his spot on the balcony, the ghost watches them ferry similarly disembodied books across the red tiles. Occasionally, he would catch the distorted glimpse of a face in the polished brass of the desk lamps. It unsettles him. He rarely descends to the main floor during the daytime, keeping to his seat on top of the balcony bookshelves, leaning against the grand window. 

Beyond the window, things are changing, too. The city on the horizon seems to draw nearer with each passing day. It is winter in the city; in certain light, he can make out snow-banked alleys and hunched shadows across the sea. 

He is halfway through a Bulgakov when a movement and a hint of colour on the main floor attract his attention. Satan is about to throw the most stupendous ball in Moscow and Margarita is perfumed in rose oil when a shadow steps into the sunlight and solidifies into the outline of an extraordinarily tall man. His features are hazy, as if the ghost is viewing him through a pane of frosted glass. Dark hair brushed back, tan coat draped over his arm. He takes a seat and opens the book in his hands, his movements deft and precise. 

An invisible woman casts a shadow on the tiles as she moves towards the stranger. On cue, the stranger lifts his head and seems to converse with her before turning back to his book. The ghost watches her shadow melt into the darkened corners of the reading room and thinks of a low, warm voice, rising unbidden like the swell of a wave, dissipating like foam against the coastline of his memories. 

When he blinks, he finds himself standing next to the stranger. Unlike the woman, his body casts no shadow on the man. The two of them are neighbouring points on the space and time fabric, separated by a dimension not yet measured by humanity. “Sergei,” he calls out. 

To his surprise, the stranger looks up, squints against the glare of the afternoon sun. “Ash?” the stranger whispers. “Aslan?” 

“Sergei,” he repeats, but the man must have not heard or seen any more of him, for he gives a little self-deprecating shake of the head before returning to his book. 

_A Moveable Feast_. The ghost finds another copy in the stacks and spends his day reading about Pound and Fitzgerald by way of Papa Hemingway. When he catches Sergei getting up in the corner of his eye, he turns his back to the reading room and presses close to the window, letting the words and the waves carry him away. 

* * *

Ghosts neither sleep nor dream, but one night he finds himself trapped in a dream. From the waves outside his window has risen a New York alley, backdoors and rubbish bins huddled under the shadows of stained brick walls. The moon east of Eden is near and large, and it illuminates the scene as if it is a stage out of a play. The ghost tries to avert his eyes, but his limbs are frozen in place. On the stage, a fine drizzle has started, blanketing the scenery in a gentle mist. The ghost follows the trajectory of every raindrop and wonders if this is what death feels like. 

A man and his umbrella enter the scene. He is not tall, but he is slender. _Thinner_ , the ghost’s mind supplies, _too thin_ ; yet he is unable to summon any memory to serve as a basis for his comparison. The man’s black hair is gathered into a loose ponytail at the base of his neck. He goes to stand in front of a green dumpster and puts his umbrella down. The ghost notes, with unexpected surprise, that his eyes are framed by a pair of glasses. 

Unceremoniously, the man sticks his head and his arm into the dumpster. It does not take long before he re-emerges, a black plastic bag in hand. Placing the bag on the alley floor, he rips the knots open and cautiously reaches in. 

It is a puppy, perhaps a couple of weeks old, snuffling and shivering and squalling in the man’s hands. Its fur is wet and matted, but the man hugs the animal close to his chest. His lips are moving; the waves blot out his voice, but the ghost thinks that they are gentle words. 

There is a moment when the man, puppy in hand, picks up his umbrella and looks up at the sky, at the New York moon, at the window where the ghost sits, watching. The ghost meets his eyes, feels the frost melt off his joints, raises his fist against the window, and knocks against the cold glass. 

The first knock resounds feebly throughout the empty library. On the second knock, the puppy lifts its head and lets out a short bark. The ghost raps his knuckles as hard as he dares to. That yields him another bark, followed by a soothing hand ruffling the puppy’s fur. The man adjusts his grip on his umbrella and his dog and begins to walk away. The hand on the window is still knocking even after the pair has exited the stage, with the puppy looking after the man’s shoulder; even after the sea has surged and pulled the alleyway back into its depths; even after the stars have come out, winking in time with the rhythm of his knuckles. 

* * *

Ever since the night with the man and the dog, the flow of time has never been more palpable and yet more incomprehensible to the ghost. Some days pass so quickly that he spends them on the building’s front steps by the lion statues, his legs swinging underwater, watching the sun and the moon chase each other above a horizon that is drifting ever closer. He feels like a sailor manning the prow, the library a ship sailing home to a port unknown to him. 

Indoors, the shadows are gaining bodies. At the beginning, they were shimmering silhouettes, visible only under the noon sun. Gradually, they became corporeal, filling the reading room with their colourful phantoms: watercolour sketches of a cornucopia of New Yorkers and the omnipresent tourists. Their voices have begun to reach the ghost, too, although they sound oddly distant: the rustling of pages, quiet whispers, small coughs ricocheting off the stonework. They rise out of the sea and pass by the ghost and the lions; when they come out of the library, they return to the waves. The ghost imagines them trudging across the seabed to the city on the horizon, escorted by gleaming fishes. 

There are days when time slows down into a sluggish trickle, a honeyed drip, and then, finally, a standstill altogether. The visitors are still figures encapsulated in the amber of the sunlight. Usually, the ghost spends these days curled up on top of a bookshelf, reading. However, there are occasions when he would put his book down and wander through the exhibits of personages, wondering if any of them would spark the recognition without remembrance he got from Sergei and the man in the rain. 

He has not had any success, but he has begun noticing some of the regulars. Every summer, a trio of young men seats themselves on the corner of the long table right beneath his favourite window. They come early in the morning and stay until closing time, working their way slowly through a haphazard selection of books, magazines, and newspaper. Always the same faces. Sometimes, they whisper to themselves and attract the discipline of the library staff. 

A regular might have noticed him. He comes every winter, sitting on the same spot as the summer trio. Unfailingly, he would place a single long-stemmed red rose and a well-worn envelope on the table. His visits never last long; he would spend an hour or so flipping perfunctorily through a book before carefully tucking the envelope back into his inner pocket and getting up to leave. One molasses-like day, the ghost took the seat across him and peeked at the cover of his book. It was Salinger. _Nine Stories_. The ghost was about to reach for the envelope when time thawed in a rush around them and the man’s arm shot out, reaching to grasp something, _someone_ before him. When he opened his palm, there were only dust motes, floating in the sunlight. The ghost sat in silence and watched him run his hands—his trembling hands—across his short dark hair. 

The ghost closed his eyes against the torment on the man’s face. 

The next year and the years after, the man and his rose are still there, but the envelope is no more. 

* * *

The ghost wonders. 

The sea is gone. The city of New York has wrapped itself around the library, ensconcing it in bricks and steel and traffic. The ghost watches the buildings and the cars and the people and tries to divine the era. Without memories, however, change is the only thing that he could fathom. 

At night, with no one in sight, he sits on the front steps and quizzes the lions. Like milking stone, success is rare and invariably indecipherable. They are most amenable to questions that begin with “where”. 

“New York City,” the lion on the right says, and his brother quips, “Duh.” 

“West of Eden,” the one on the left chuckles. The other rolls his eyes but dutifully follows up, “East of perdition.” 

One clouded evening, the ghost descends the steps only to find the lions pacing on their pedestals, restlessly sniffing the wind. The lion on the right says to him, “This is a waiting room.” 

“What are we waiting for?” 

The lion on the left looks him in the eye and corrects him, “ _Whom_. Whom are _we_ waiting for?” 

The two lions leap off their pedestals and stalk up the stairs towards him. Their stone fangs and claws are bared. They growl and growl until the ghost has no choice but to back into the library, and they do not cease their roaring until he returns to the main reading room, the heavy doors slamming shut behind him. 

It is snowing inside, white falling from the painted clouds on the ceiling and piling on the red tiles. It is cold, too, the kind of cold that he has not felt ever since he entered the library: it drapes itself over his skin and seeps into his bones. His thin white T-shirt offers little warmth. He wraps his arms around his body and makes his way across the room, back to his perch on top of the bookshelves, by the arched window. 

The ghost wonders if this is what happens to a soul after the body dies: another death. There is something familiar in the act, in the cold, in the silence. Dying is an art, and he is a practised hand. Resting his head against the window, he watches as the streetlights flicker out one by one, until the street is dark and silent and all he could see is nothing—and all he could hear is the falling of his heartbeat and the snow. 

Before the silence could claim him, too, the clouds part to reveal the moon, risen from the west, large and silver and too near to be real. While he was not looking, the darkness has swallowed the street and spat out something else in its place. Short buildings standing still against the wind. Foreign calligraphy inked in neon lights. 

Chinatown. 

Along the deserted road come two figures. The moon uncovers their faces to him. The taller and the broader one he recognises as the library regular, the one who comes every winter, a blood red rose in hand. The one who used to carry an old letter in his pocket. The other— 

The man is older than he remembers. His hair is cut short. The thin arms that held an abandoned puppy under the rain have filled out slightly. His shoulders are no longer hunched in pain as he walks alongside the taller man. A foul wind is blowing in Chinatown; when his companion turns to tighten the scarf around the man’s neck, Aslan feels his chest contract. His heart squeezes out a name that travels through his arteries and up his throat, only to die on the tip of his tongue. The failure pains him, sets his teeth on edge. In frustration, he raises his fist and knocks against the window. 

The moon west of perdition reveals all to the ghost in the window, which is how he sees the shadow and the glint of a gun long before the two men below. Which is why he knocks louder, faster, dry lips moving soundlessly, calling out a name his memory has lost but his soul has not. He knocks so hard that he could hear his bones cracking, ramming his fist in abandon until a forgotten wound on his side reopens, until blood seeps into his turtleneck and dyes his trench coat red. 

But they do not hear him. They never do. 

The moon is a silent witness as a man raises his gun in Chinatown and empties the barrel at Sing Soo Ling’s back, as the first bullet ricochets off the empty street, as Ash Lynx pounds and screams against the cage his soul is trapped in, as Eiji Okumura—smaller and shorter and yet not necessarily weaker; he used to fly, after all; Ash had seen him do it with his own eyes—pushes Sing behind him—

Dying is an art, and this is what it feels like: a bullet tearing through soft flesh, blood on the pavement, shock and torment, a knife in your side, your heart bursting in fate’s merciless grip, a name being ripped out of your soul even as it shatters, shatters, shatters into snow, into silence, into the blessed dark.

“ _Eiji!_ "

* * *


	2. East of Eden

The gunshot echoed down the hallways of the safe house, woke Sing up, and set him into reflexive motion. However, the sound that followed rooted him to the spot, feet half-jammed into his shoes. It sounded inhuman, like the roar of a wounded and angered beast. He spent several precious seconds trying to comprehend the sound and what it meant. _A name_ , he realised. _Eiji’s_ _._

Fear—true fear—bloomed like a wretched flower within him; it settled as a burning weight of lead at the bottom of his stomach. He fought his way through the current of terrified gang members streaming out of their respective rooms. “Let me through!” he shouted, but there was no need. Someone, _something_ , was approaching, and the people ahead were already parting before its approach.

From the fluorescent light walked Ash Lynx, his expression beautiful and terrible, his gun aimed straight at Sing’s head. There were two bodies laid before Sing, riddled with bullet holes. With every step Ash took forward, the people behind Sing took a step back, leaving him to stand his ground, alone but for the dead.

He clenched his fists, digging his nails into the flesh of his palms, using the pain to cut through the paralysing fear. He knew the dead men’s names; had been invited to dinner by the mother of one of them. Looking at their empty stares, at the fear etched upon their features in death, he said, “You killed them.”

“They killed him,” Ash spat out.

Sing shook his head, stepping over the dead bodies. “You’re wrong. This is all wrong. Eiji’s alive.” Ash was watching his movements and the gun was still trained on his head, but Sing resolutely ignored them all. Brushing past Ash, he entered the room.

It was not Eiji, after all. Instead, lying on an autopsy table, his distinctive hair shaved off and his skull carved open, was Shorter. A perfectly circular little hole marred his chest, right where his heart would be. The fear inscribed in his open eyes were the same fear as the one haunting the dead bodies in the hallway. 

Someone was screaming. It took Sing two heartbeats to realise that he was the one screaming. 

There was a switch blade in his back pocket. His fingers closed upon it. “I knew it! You killed him!” he roared, whirling around to brandish his weapon at Ash. 

Except Ash was gone. 

Eiji stood in the doorway, soaking wet down to every last strand of his long hair. At the sight of him, Sing’s knife clattered harmlessly onto the tiles, joining the drops of water falling from Eiji’s body. Eiji’s chin was tilted downwards, his gaze trained on the floor. “No, Sing,” he whispered. “You killed him.” 

There was red mixing into the growing puddle at Eiji’s feet, clouding the clear water. Knowing what he was going to find and yet fearing what he was going to see, Sing followed Eiji’s gaze down, down, down, to the spread of blood, to its pale and lifeless source, to Ash’s smiling face. 

“You killed him,” Eiji repeated, and that was all he said before he picked up the blade and drove it into Sing’s heart.

* * *

Sing had built a system on how to wake up from nightmares. First, he imagined that the dampness all around him was the ocean, the roar of blood in his ears the waves. This would trick his body into keeping his eyes closed—preventing disorientation—and not drawing a breath—a precaution against hyperventilation. As his heartbeat slowed, he would move to imagining that the ocean was, in fact, a shallow pond. All he needed to do was surface.

And so he did. His first intake of air after the nightmare was calm, measured, and quiet. Had Akira been next to him, she would not have stirred. But she was in Japan for the wedding of a relative; whether it was a nephew or a distant cousin, Sing could not quite recall. He had carefully, subtly encouraged her to go, despite her initial disinclination. _It’s been a while since you last visited your parents_ , he had told her. _Go and show off how well you and your husband are doing in the land of the free_. Which left Sing sitting alone in the dark, surrounded by sweat-dampened sheets. 

He groped for his cell phone on the nightstand. Squinting through the screen’s glow, he skimmed through an update from Yut-Lung; read Eiji’s latest reply to their never-ending, ever-morphing conversation—the latest topic on the menu was the upcoming election; grinned at a non-sequitur picture of Buddy; checked the time. Half-past midnight, which meant Eiji was still wide awake and they could make it well before the last order call time at Wei’s Kitchen. 

‘ _Cant_ _sleep. Hungry,’_ he texted. _'Lamian at Wei’s?’_

He leant back and closed his eyes. It did not take long before his phone vibrated gently against his rib cage. 

_Of course._

* * *

The roads were oddly quiet, even after accounting for the late hour, as if the city had been emptied out. Sing made the trip from Soho to Greenwich Village in record time. Pulling up the street in which Eiji’s brownstone was located, he saw the man on the sidewalk, a lonesome figure at the farthest reach of his headlights. Despite the cold winter air, he was standing against the wind, his scarf and coat flapping behind him. 

As Sing came to a halt beside him, Eiji turned and gave him a little wave. Sing had to tamp down the smile tugging on the corners of his lips as he leant over to open the door for Eiji, schooling his expression into a disapproving parental scowl of concern. 

“Hey,” Eiji said, rubbing his bare hands together. 

Sing sighed. “You should have waited inside. I could have texted you to come down.” 

“The moon is beautiful tonight.” 

Despite himself, Sing peered out of the windshield to try and catch a glimpse of the moon. “Not worth catching a cold and losing your life over,” he grumbled. 

Eiji threw him a look. “I’m not going to _die_ from a cold.” 

“When is your trip to Nova Scotia? Don’t forget to pack the socks Akira gave you; they’re real good against the cold.” 

“Yes, _mom_.” 

There was a moment when, walking from the car to the Wei’s, Eiji paused and rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully. “Should I grow out my hair again?” he mused. 

The moonlight and the shadows made it easy—far too easy—for Sing to picture black locks brushing a thin—too thin—shoulder. He could not prevent his voice from catching when he patted Eiji on the shoulder and half-lied, “You look better with short hair.” 

Wei’s Kitchen had three things on their menu and was famous for all three of them: the _lamian_ , which soup base was a family secret transported spatially from Gansu and passed down temporally through three generations and counting in America; the fried dumplings, which were a magnet for Japanese tourists; and the sesame balls— _jian_ _dui—_ served at the perfect temperature and the perfect level of stickiness and the perfect sweetness of sesame paste. It tended to see an uptick in customers between midnight and its 2 a.m. closing time, catering to the late-night rovers of Lower Manhattan, who stumbled out of their apartments and local bars alike, driven by the type of hunger that arises only after dark or after a few rounds of drinks. 

It puzzled Sing to see the place almost deserted. “Foul winds on the streets tonight,” Wei Jr. Jr. said, handing them their bowls of _lamian_. Leaning conspiratorially across the counter, he whispered, “I’m thinking of closing the store early for the next few weeks. Until all the bullshit between us and the Su gang blows over. But my grandfather wouldn’t hear of it.” 

Surreptitiously, Sing glanced at Eiji. But Eiji simply took a pair of wooden chopsticks and handed them to Sing without a word. 

Halfway through their noodles, in a lull between all the chewing and sipping, Eiji put down his chopsticks and turned towards Sing. “Sing,” he said, in a tone that Sing was all too familiar with, “Is everything all right?” 

“Yes,” he replied. Perhaps too quickly. “Or it will be, very soon. Yut-Lung and I are taking care of it. You don’t have to worry.” 

“Akira—she’s in Japan.” 

“Just a precaution.” 

Eiji shook his head but did not say anything. Sing watched him, watched the small frown marring his forehead, watched the worry in his eyes. “The trip to Canada—how long will you be there?” 

“One week at most.” 

Sing nodded. “Good. It should be all over by the time you get back. It _will_ be over by then.” 

Eiji picked his chopsticks up. Right when Sing thought it was all over, he put them back down and quietly said, “I wish I could be here next week.” 

His words made Sing frown in earnest. “Eiji—” 

“In four days, Eiji continued, withdrawing something out of his coat pocket, “it will be thirteen years.” 

It had been thirteen years, and the sight of the envelope, the fading inscription on the front, the darkened corners that only those in the know would recognise as not due to age, still exerted a strong influence over Sing, as if it was a wave and he a boat forever at sea. It had been thirteen years and there remained no port in sight. He put down his chopsticks, closed his eyes against the sickness welling within him. “Thirteen years,” he repeated, throat dry. 

Eiji’s tone had taken on a dreamy quality. “I thought—well, I thought, it has been thirteen years. Perhaps I should finally go check out the library. And deliver this letter.” After a pause, he continued, “Unfortunately, I will be out of town. Would you mind delivering it for me again, Sing?” 

_I did_ , Sing wanted to say. _For eight years, I did_. Twelve roses he had laid down on a wooden table, under the golden sunlight. Twelve roses for twelve years. For eight of those years, the letter accompanied the flowers, long after its intended recipient had departed the world. The man, the rose, and the letter. In the face of endless penitence, a dozen years had passed like the blink of an eye. 

“Of course,” he said. 

There was a flash of relief in Eiji’s eyes when Sing took the letter from him. Whatever was reflected on Sing’s expression, Eiji had to have seen it, too; he had to have known that Sing knew. “The Nova Scotia job. I took it because—” 

If Sing had never heard any more admission of guilt from Eiji’s lips for the rest of his life, he would have been content. “Maybe it’s good,” he interjected loudly, “maybe it’s good that you’re not going to the library. That place is fucking haunted.” 

Eiji blinked several times before chuckling. “Never took you as the superstitious type.” 

“Oh, I’m not,” Sing answered, returning to his cold noodles. “But the ghost is real. I’ve seen it myself.”

* * *

Foul winds, indeed. Back against the wind, Sing reached down, tightened the scarf around Eiji’s neck, and tucked the ends under his collar for good measure. “The letter,” he murmured. “I—” 

_I go to the library every year in the winter,_ _Eiji_ _. Every year, I buy a rose and read a book in his honour, the way I saw him do on that fated day, almost thirteen years gone. The first eight years, the letter came with me, too._

_One year, a ghost sat down across me. I swear._

_I go to the library every year in the winter and think of Ash. Of you._

“I’ll deliver it this year, but let’s go together next year.” 

Eiji’s smile was painful; Eiji’s smile was beautiful. 

* * *

Sing heard it before anything else, before he could see the man with the gun, before he could watch the first bullet miss him by three feet, before he could feel Eiji’s hand on him, pushing him out of the way. It was as he had heard it more than a decade ago, echoing through the walls of a rundown safe house and jolting him awake; it was as he had heard it in his nightmares. A name and the roar of a soul being ripped apart, more beast-like than human. There was a chill in his spine, a cold grip in his heart, frost in the roots of his soul. Surely it was too cold to be a dream. 

He caught Eiji by the shoulders as he heard a gun clatter down the street. “Eiji,” he started, and failed, seeing blood seep out of Eiji’s fingers. He whipped his head up to see the perpetrator, but all he saw was the blur of a shadow running into the night. It was only when he looked down and saw the teardrops falling onto Eiji’s cheeks that he realised he was crying. 

Help, Sing wanted to scream. Help us. Help him. But something thick and dark was coiled around Sing’s throat, suffocating him. He wanted to die. Instead, he lifted Eiji into his arms, not allowing his grip to tremble when Eiji gasped in pain at the movement. 

Eiji’s gaze was directed upwards, as if he was staring at something beyond Sing’s shoulder. “Sing,” he whispered, reaching to touch Sing’s cheek. His fingertips were cold, his blood warm. “Sing.” 

“Keep applying pressure on the wound,” Sing gritted out, already walking away. He could feel the dampness through his jacket and his shirt, running down his trousers. There was a trail of blood on the pavement behind them, and it was making Sing feel like he was fourteen all over again, collecting the dead bodies of his brother and his friend. Except this was Eiji, and—god bless Lao’s soul—Eiji was more than a brother, more than a friend; he was married to Eiji’s goddaughter in all but name. “You’re gonna be okay. Just keep pressing on it.” 

He placed Eiji on the passenger seat of his car, buckled the seatbelt securely over Eiji’s hand on the wound. “You’re going to be all right,” he said. When Eiji smiled wanly at him, he realised that, rather than Eiji, he had been reassuring himself. If he had not been so thoroughly destroyed, he thought the shame would have done it. 

He hit the road fast and hard, with the devil on his tail. Half his mind was running through a map of New York City, routing them to the nearest medical assistance, traffic direction be damned. The other half was parsing through a list of suspects, wondering who dared to risk the wrath of Lee Yut Lung. He dared not look at Eiji, fearing that it would bring forth tears and slow down his driving. He did not hear Eiji calling out his name until he tried to turn the wheel and found himself unable to do so; Eiji had reached across the centre console to grip the steering wheel. 

“Holy _shit_ , Eiji. What are you doing?” 

“The library, Sing.” Under the streetlight, Eiji’s face was too pale and his jacket was too dyed with blood to be called red, but there was a startling clarity and authority in his eyes. “Take me to the library.” 

Sing understood, or he thought he understood, truly. “No,” he replied, trying to peel Eiji’s hand off the steering wheel while maintaining their course and speed. “No! You’re going to make it. I’ll take you to the library after. I’ll take you as many times you want. We’ll go with Akira.” 

Eiji let go of the steering wheel, and Sing was about to breathe a sigh of relief when he grasped Sing’s arm with both hands instead. Sing watched fresh blood bloom on his side as the pressure was released. “I said, the library, Sing. Now.” 

Sing pushed Eiji’s hands away. There was thunder in his ears, composed of rage and his own heartbeats. 

_After all this time._

“We’ll drive past,” he managed to grit out. “We’ll drive past the library on the way to the hospital.” 

At his acquiescence, Eiji relaxed, placed his hand back on his side, smiled at Sing. Sing could not help but think of how much he hated this man. And how much he hated Ash Lynx. “Thank you, Sing.” 

I can’t win, Sing wanted to say. He’s dead, but I can’t win. 

I can’t win against you, either, when it comes to him. 

I doubt anyone can. 

The main branch of the New York Public Library rose along the 5th Avenue as a patch of open sky in a towering forest of steel and stones, light and glass. Sing dropped his speed as the imposing Corinthian pillars came into view. The road was unusually empty, even for the unusual hour of the night. It was probably a mere trick of shadow and light, but Sing fancied that the lions were looking in their direction. 

Under its watchful gaze, Sing slowly drove past the first lion. His foot was tense on the gas pedal. “Satisfied?” he asked. 

Slumped as he was against the car seat, Eiji was looking at the lion, his head tilted and the pale blue veins of his neck exposed. Sing was about to reach for his pulse when he saw a blood-soaked hand shift to add more pressure. Regret, pity, and love surged up his throat, forcing him to choke out his words. “I’m taking you to the hospital.” 

His foot pressed on the pedal. In that instance, as the force of his command was transmitted throughout the machineries of his car, he witnessed the lion ahead turn its great stone head towards them. It paralysed his mind for a split of a second. Before he could say the phrase “a trick of light”, Eiji had grabbed the steering wheel and, in one exhalation, _turned_. 

Sing slammed on the brakes right before they could hurtle onto the front steps of the library. He watched in horror as the inertia jerked Eiji’s limp body forward and backward. There was a whimper of pain, and then, nothing. 

Practically ripping his seatbelt open, Sing jumped out of the car. He all but leapt over the hood in his haste to get to the passenger door. There was a boy standing at the top of staircase, watching the proceedings. He was underdressed for the winter night and looked to be fourteen or fifteen—too young to be out at this hour but not too young for a cell phone. “Call 911!” Sing shouted as he wrenched Eiji’s door open. “Someone’s hurt! Call 911!” 

While he was driving, it was impossible for Sing to see—truly see—how badly Eiji was doing, but everything was laid bare before him by the moonlight. His lips were pale, his breathing shallow. He had somehow managed to get blood on his cheek and glasses, blood that was still pouring out of him, gushing between his feeble fingers like a fountain of life, pooling in the interior of Sing’s car, and dripping onto the pavement below. Sing knelt before him, as if in supplication, and pressed his hands on top of Eiji’s. “Don’t stop applying pressure on it,” he commanded. His words were damp, tasting of salt. “Don’t you dare let go.” 

Eiji’s eyes were glazed, but he stroked Sing’s jaw with a gentle hand. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “Sing, it’s going to be all right.” 

Sing barked out a short laugh, a lonely sound that echoed in the stone courtyard. “Yeah.” His voice was hoarse; he felt like he had been screaming all the way here. “Yeah. We’re going to Cape Cod this summer, right? I’m gonna teach you and Akira how to do the backstroke. We need to stock up on sunscreen; I’m done with feeling like barbecue after last summer—” 

With every syllable, the hand underneath his was turning colder. Eiji’s entire body was slowing down, from the rise and fall of his breathing to the fluttering of his eyelashes. “Eiji?” Sing called out. “Eiji. Stay with me. Eiji. Please. Stay with me, Eiji.” 

There was a voice at the back of his mind, playing a wise advice from a foolish man: _don’t fight memories, Sing; you’re never going to win_. But this was Eiji, and this was Sing’s role, futile as it might have been. Should the knight not fight the dragon just because victory is impossible? 

He felt, rather than heard, Eiji draw a sharp breath, watched Eiji blink rapidly. When Eiji opened his eyes again, they were shockingly clear, like an unclouded night sky. For a breath, Sing believed him, believed that everything is going to be all right. Help would come, Eiji would be saved, and they would go to Cape Cod come summer. 

But Eiji was smiling, and the smile was cruel in its familiarity. Sing divined the name before it even fell out of Eiji’s lips: “Ash....” 

Cold. It was so cold. His heart was made of glass, his limbs of stone. He remembered seeing a ghost in the New York Public Library. If you look from the corner of your eye, from the top of your book, the sunbeams will sketch out the features of a handsome teenager. Golden hair, green eyes, fourteen or fifteen years old at most. If you try to catch him, he will melt into the light, leaving you with nothing but dust. 

Sing followed the line of Eiji’s gaze, turned his head, and saw the ghost of the library standing at the top of the staircase. Recognition, after all these years, made him scramble to his feet, almost slipping on blood, Eiji’s blood. He spreads his arms, showing his bloodied hands, his bloodied jacket, his bloodied trousers. “This—this isn’t what you want,” he choked out. Still, the ghost watched on. Under that green-eyed gaze, he roared, “You can’t have him! I’m not letting you have him!” 

He felt it before he heard it: an exhalation as light and happy as the first spring breeze. It was one name, and it had always been the same name, even after all this time, all these years, all those roses that Sing placed in the hope of paying off an imaginary debt. The warmth of it pierced Sing’s cold heart and broke it along familiar fault lines. “Ash....” 

He could not win, not against Eiji, not against the tears welling up in his eyes. He turned his back on the ghost of the library, cupped Eiji’s face in his hands, and kissed him over and over again. His cool forehead, his tender eyes, his wet cheeks, his pale lips. Listened to Eiji’s voice calling out the same name. Answered, yes, Eiji, it’s Ash. It’s Ash. It’s Ash and your breathing is so quiet and your body is so cold and there is so much blood and I’m never going to let you go, but you’re right, Eiji: it’s Ash, and you’re going to be all right.

* * *

The ghost of the library watches as the tall young man slowly rises to his feet, gently closes the passenger door, and gets back into the car. His gaze is stubbornly fixed downwards, as if he is refusing to see the ghost, the library, or both. Several seconds pass in which he leans his forehead against the steering wheel; the wind picks up snatches of his anguished scream, dancing by the ghost before taking flight into the fading dark. 

The ghost of the library watches as the car speeds down 5th Avenue, disappearing into the crack of dawn. All that is left is the shadow of a bespectacled man, standing on the bloodstained pavement. The figure lifts a hand at the taillights, as if saying thank you, and goodbye. 

The ghost of the library watches as the first light of dawn breaks the colours of the city open. It dyes the hair of the man on the pavement black, the frame of his glasses silver, his skin golden. His eyes, the ghost knows, is the colour of the night. 

The ghost of the library watches as the man makes his way up towards him. The years seem to fall off him with each marble step. His hair grows long; his body thins to a fragile gauntness. “You’re here,” he cries out, looking straight at the ghost. “All these years, you’ve been waiting here.” Even as he speaks, his hair grows short; his body fills out once more. 

His eyes and his smile, however, remain the same. 

Reaching for the ghost across all the years separating them, the man calls out a single name. 

It descends upon Ash like dawn after an endless night, like the first breath after the deepest dive. The memories return like a wave to the shore; it stretches his heart and his limbs and fills him up, until he is brimming with it, until he is spilling with it, until he is running and stumbling into Eiji's arms with recognition and remembrance and love. Until the stones lay forgotten beneath their feet and a field of gold grows underneath. 

Until they speak each other’s name in Eden. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As this work is pending beta, I might return to make some changes as necessary in the near future.


End file.
